Lifetime Sentences

By Jim Hagarty
1991

Once or twice a month, Canadian Press sends its member newspapers a photo of a rebel steer that had the audacity to jump over a fence or out of a truck in a futile attempt to “make a break for it.” When this happens in the country, no one but the farmer and his neighbours takes much notice. They round up the maverick animal and back it goes to join its fellow cattle who weren’t so brave and elected to stay put. This is an event, given the state of some farm fences and the cantankerous mood of some bovines out there, that is not really very rare in rural areas. It is a concern when cattle get hit by traffic on the road but otherwise, it is not an earth-shattering event.

But let livestock – especially cows, bulls or steers – set one hoof on urban pavement or parkland, and big city news photographers trip over their aperture openings on their way to the scene of the crime. In the last few years, literally dozens of their photos of cattle galloping amidst the traffic on busy city streets have turned up on my desk and I am proud to say that as far as I know, I have never used even one in this section of the newspaper. I guess the sight of a bunch of arm-waving police officers and their posse of ever-helpful passersby trying to chase poor cattle beasts back into the country leaves me a bit grumpy. The cattle know they are not where they are supposed to be – the grazing isn’t that great on those multi-lane expressways – but they must be a bit bewildered, even terrified, to see throngs of people yelling at them as if they were monsters on the loose in a horror movie.

Many of these pictures, for some reason or other, emanate from Calgary, Alberta. Perhaps it isn’t so strange that so many escapee steers would head for there as the city is, after all, located in the heart of cattle country. But Calgary photographers, it seems to me, are almost hypersensitive to this problem of livestock that are absent without leave. The irony in this, for me, is the fact that long before there was such an animal as a Calgary photographer, cattle roamed and grazed and slept and reproduced on the very land on which Calgary and its newspaper offices now sit.

Just who, then, is the real intruder?

Perhaps it is pushing this anti-runaway-cow-photos stance a little too far to suggest that many people in our biggest cities have gotten so far away from their roots, that what was once a natural part of our environment has now become an alien to be driven out of our concrete jungles before they … before they what? Lie down under a maple tree and chew their cud?

Some reporters can walk by street gangs, hookers and people sleeping on sidewalk grates in the winter without ever tripping a shutter. But let a Guernsey gallop through a green light …

As long as city schoolchildren answer “the store” when asked where milk comes from, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me when they grow up to become “photojournalists” who think cattle in the city are big news. But then, maybe someday when fanatics have shut down animal agriculture altogether, we’ll be grateful for these pictures to teach future generations what a cow looked like.

By Jim Hagarty
2014

Finally some good news.

Think the passage of time can put you out of reach of the long arm of the law? Think again. Justice for many of the unfortunate citizens of the United States with all their corruption, killings and chaos is often slow to be realized but maybe that is changing.

In Pickens, South Carolina, a lawbreaking movie watcher was arrested and taken to jail this week. And well she should have been. Nine years ago she rented a video from a local store and never returned it. So she was charged with failing to return a rented video cassette – a very serious offence – and taken to jail where she spent one night in a cell.

Pickens County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Creed Hashe says Finley rented the movie Monster-in-Law from Dalton Videos in 2005. The owner took out a warrant against Finley, who was arrested when she was at the sheriff’s office for something else and the warrant was found. (Actually she should also be charged with watching a movie called Monster-in-Law but we’ll let that go for now.)

Chief Deputy Hashe, who also answers to the name Barney Fife, says Finley had been sent several certified letters at the time. She says she never got the letters and that she will fight the charge.

Ya, right. If you’re looking for any signs of the truth in that woman’s brain, I can bet you it will be slim pickins.

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There was a young doofus named Bill
Who sat on his window sill.
“Get down!” yelled his Dad.
“I won’t,” said the lad.
“If I want to sit here I will.”

By Jim Hagarty
2008

I used to mark many of the milestones in my life in relation to how I had finally come of age for this thing or the other. It was all about getting to finally do things that were never available to me before.

Old enough to drive the tractor. Old enough to shave. And believe it or not, old enough to smoke. When I was young, the question was not, will smoking hurt his health, but, is he old enough. That was quite a big day when no one objected when you lit up or even downed a bottle of beer. Even better: In public.

Then, of course, there was driving the car. And girlfriends.

But the real passage from boy to man came when my dad’s clothes fit me. To imagine, when you’re young, that you would ever grow so much as to be able to throw on his jacket or boots was just impossible.

Yet, the day came and while it was a big one for me, I never wondered for a moment what he must have thought about it, if he thought about it at all.

Now, as a dad myself, the milestones are recorded somewhat in reverse. You know the kids are growing – the clothing bills are enough evidence of that – but they’ll never catch up. Surely. These are people who you used to be able to carry around in the palm of one hand.

One day, you try on your son’s new shoes and find they are too big for you. Too big. That’s impossible.

He gives you his old ones – hardly broken in – and they fit like a glove. In fact, he gives you his old gloves and they fit like a shoe.

When you first saw your son’s feet, each of them was about as big as your thumb. Now they’re bigger than your feet.

Each generation, it seems, grows a little bigger than the one before it. A little better looking. And very often, a little smarter too.

As far as I know, my kids aren’t counting the days till they can smoke. And at this point, anyway, they think that drugging and over-drinking hold no appeal. They are more conscious of the importance of a good diet than I ever have been.

I often feel a pang when I see another sign that the birds will fly from the nest someday not too many years down the road.

But I take some consolation from being the beneficiary of the good taste with which my dad and my son seem to have been blessed.

So for the next while, in any case, if you see a marked improvement in my attire, it might not be the result of some sudden infusion of clothing sense on my part but a passage, once more, through the closets and drawers of another generation.

By Jim Hagarty
2015

It’s a scary world and getting scarier by the day. A California woman has been getting death threats by email. Yikes! What is worse, she has been sending these threats TO HERSELF.

What was the poor frightened woman to do? Call the police, of course. You would do the same. As would I.

The police traced the emails back to the woman herself and she was arrested. Apparently, she is relieved that the culprit has been apprehended. She asked police if she could arrest herself and they said no. Now she is holding out for a trial by herself, no judge or jury involved.

She’ll probably sentence herself to three months in a resort in the Bahamas. You would do the same.

By Jim Hagarty
1992

The other day, I phoned a company and my call was promptly answered by a recording.

“Thank you for calling,” oozed a calm, male voice, which was all business and not given to much idle chat. “Here are your options for moving onto the next stage,” the voice said, before detailing five choices I had. If I had a question about my bill, I was to press one, a complaint about service, press two, a request for information, press three, etc.

I immediately felt myself tense up as I was now part of some sort of test I hadn’t been expecting. It seemed almost as if I was on one of those TV game shows where you have only so many seconds to make your picks. “I’ll take underwater photography, for $500, Clint!” You know the kind.

Reviewing my five choices, I realized they were all slightly fuzzy in their description. My problem could have fit almost any one of the five. I took a chance and pressed two.

“Thank you,” I was congratulated by the voice. Now it was time to move on. Here was my new “menu”, I was told. Four more choices. All of them a little more specific than the first stage but no less threatening. I pulled out a finger and took a stab at number three.

More congratulations from the voice followed, and then, another menu. If this was a board game, I would have just passed go and picked up $200. As it was, I chose number four.

Finally, another recorded voice, this time female, assured me that help of the “live” kind was on its way. As soon as a worker was free, my call would be taken. Now, soothing recorded music floated over the phone and every 30 seconds or so, the female voice returned to caution me not to get discouraged. Someone would be with me soon.

Finally, a real human being answered, gave me her name, and very pleasantly guided me through my request for help.

All was well that ended well.

Until the next day, when I remembered something I had forgotten to ask the woman I was talking to. But, given this modern technology, I realized she was like a pleasant dream you try, in vain, to remember the details of after you wake in the morning. She was gone and I may as well forget her.

I called back. Went through the menus and the options, this time like a pinball wizard learning the right bounces on a new machine. But the woman of the first day was gone, replaced by an equally pleasant woman, though I realize now, that she is probably gone forever too.

This is all such a far cry from the days before “menus” and “touch tones” and “digital this” and “laser that.” But I suppose it’s on its way to all of us, ready or not.

Surely it won’t be long before most home phones are answered by a professionally recorded voice: “Thank you for calling. To proceed to the next stage, please listen to the following options and press the number of your choice. If you’re a friend or relative, press one. If you’re a salesperson, press two. If you’re a bill collector, press three. If you’re my employer, press four.”

And for those who press one:

“If you’re a cousin, press one. If you’re an aunt or uncle, press two. If you’re a wife or husband, press three. If you’re a daughter or son, press four. If you are a mother or father, press five.”

And when five is pressed . . .

“Thank you. Please hold. The first available son or daughter will take your call momentarily.”

By Jim Hagarty
1988

Last week, some anonymous busybody sent me a chain letter, the latest of several I’ve received over the years. This one involved no money or whiskey, however, but simply wanted me to write to 20 people and tell them I love them. I love exactly 20 people but am too shy to write it all down in a letter so I tossed it out.

But not before I’d read some startling stuff. I was commanded to send the 20 letters out within 96 hours or risk bad luck. If I sent them out, I could expect good luck within four days. Bad luck, good luck, what was a fella to do?

To help me make up my mind, the letter provided me with both examples of the poor schmoes who didn’t send the letters and the lucky dogs who did. A Royal Air Force officer, for example, got right on it, mailed the documents and received $470,000. Pitiful Elliot Joe, on the other hand, lost $40,000 because he made an airplane out of the letter and flew it off his third-floor balcony.

Tyrone Willy lost his wife six days after failing to circulate the letters. Not knowing Mrs. Willy, I will assume this was bad luck. Constantine Dias sent out 20 letters in 1953 and won a lottery worth $2 million. Carlo Badditt, said he’d be darned if he’d send out any such letters and promptly lost his job. Realizing his error, he quickly did as he was ordered and a few days later got a better job.

Poor old Delan Fairchild didn’t get a second chance. He died nine days after failing to send the letters. No such tragedy befell an obedient chain-letter woman in California, on the other hand, who got a brand new car out of the deal.

After a while, I could see that the general trend of these examples seemed to indicate that it was better to send out the letters than to not send them out. And yet, I got stuck on the part about writing love letters to 20 people. Had I been instructed to tell five or six people I sorta like them, I might have gone ahead. As it was, I just couldn’t do it.

My just desserts started the next day when I was robbed of $20. I haven’t been robbed of anything in 20 years. Two days later, somebody (the fink) stole my sunglasses out of my car while I was in a store. Two days after that, I came up empty handed in a lottery I was sure I would win.

But that isn’t all. During the past week, the following misfortunes can be added to my list:

The cat threw up on the garage floor.

A family of ants moved into my kitchen.

A family of fleas moved onto the cat.

My new eavestrough sprung a leak. So did the cat.

I showed up for a dinner date at a fancy restaurant only to find it closed for the holiday. We ate at Burgers R Us.

The cat threw up on the basement floor.

I went to the beach and got sunburned from head to toe.

A whole loaf of bread I bought went mouldy five minutes after passing its freshness date.

God called and I wasn’t home. (Lightning struck my answering machine.)

The price of coffee went up a nickel at a doughnut shop I frequent.

Of course, I’ve had enough of all this and so has the cat, which is running out of places to throw up. Therefore, I’ve decided to play along, in my own way. So, to the first 20 people who read this column, I just want to say I love you. And so does my cat.

Pass it on.

Or else.